Ram Narayan Chaudhary
Ram Narayan Chaudhary (1 August 1895 – 4 April 1989) was a Gandhian social reformer, anti-colonial nationalist, writer, and publisher, from Rajasthan in India who contributed over three decades of his life to the Indian independence movement.
He employed protest techniques such as satyagraha, non-cooperation, and non-violent resistance during Indian independence movement and in his crusade to abolish taxes on landless labourers and farmers imposed by feudal lords in Rajputana region.
[1] Chaudhary was closely associated with Harijan Sevak Sangh and toured the southern parts of India with Gandhi in the latter's campaign to rid the evil of untouchability.
[4] Born into a family of privilege in present-day Rajasthan, Chaudhary, as a graduate student in Jaipur, was initially drawn towards revolutionary activities against British Raj inspired by the writings of Aurobindo Ghose, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
[6] In the 1920s, Chaudhary was one of the leading figures of Bijolia Satyagraha demanding revocation of feudal taxes on farmers, labourers and bonded slaves in Rajputana princely states.
[7] After India's independence, Chaudhary lived for a decade in Delhi working to remove social discrimination and promoting knowledge of governance among public servants and elected local-level leaders.
Ram Narayan Chaudhary was born on 1 August 1895 at Neem Ka Thana, a town in Sikar district of present-day Rajasthan state.
His father, Muralidhar Chaudhary, inherited his aristocrat position in Sikar state from his elder brother, Chainsukhji, who had shifted from Kanwat to Neem Ka Thana to become a zamindar’s legal counsel.
His knowledge base expanded as he acquainted himself with not only the Indian movement for independence but also various nationalist struggles across the world, such as Japan's fight against Russian Empire in the early 1900s.
[15] On the advice of Arjun Lal Sethi, Chaudhary joined the Kranti Dal (Revolutionary Corps), to contribute to Indian nationalist movement, along with Chhotelal Jain and Gulab Singh Sogani circa 1912–13.
He read Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's Anandmath, Lala Har Dayal's articles, Vinayak Savarkar's Indian War of Independence as part of his induction at Kranti Dal.
[17] In 1915, after a student killed a senior English police official in Calcutta, Gandhi who had arrived in India from South Africa denounced this violent act in a public address.
Earlier, while studying at Jaipur's Maharaja College, he had already been introduced to Mahatma Gandhi's anti-colonial activism undertaken in South Africa through writings of prominent nationalists such as Krishnakant Malviya and Ganeshshankar Vidyarthi.
However, Chaudhary was unable to proceed to Champaran as he had committed to teaching at Wardha's Marwadi Education Society run by Bajaj and Krishnadas Jaju.
[23] Chaudhary and like-minded civic workers such as Pathik, Shobhalal Gupt, Maniklal Verma, Haribhai Kinker, Bhanvarlal started Rajasthan Seva Sangh at the time of Congress party's Nagpur convention in December 1920.
Anjana Devi was the sole woman founding member of this group intended to advance the causes of poor farmers, landless labourers, and bonded slaves in Rajputana's princely states.
[24] Chaudhary and Anjana Devi gave up their ancestral belongings, including numerous grand properties, settling for a monthly wage of fourteen rupees to be a part of the Rajasthan Seva Sangh.
A few months after its start, a news item vocally opposing the British administration in Rajasthan Kesari resulted in the imprisonment of Chaudhary and its co-editor, Satyadev Vidyalankar.
In 1922, as this weekly published a revolutionary writing advocating to topple the British administration, Chaudhary was jailed again for three months and barred from entering Jaipur state for 15 years.
[27] By 1921–22, Bijolia satyagraha's expanse had grown: for instance, Mewar princely state abolished 84 oppressive taxes imposed on cultivators and labourers.
[33] At the ashram, he took up duties such as administrative work, cleaning the campus, teaching Hindi to women and children while learning the art of weaving during his five-month-long stay.
Gandhi, in his absence during Salt March, decided to hand over editorial responsibilities of his newspaper Young India to Chaudhary, though, the latter felt he was not suitable for this duty.
[43] On his return from Bangalore to Wardha in August 1942, Chaudhary learned that an arrest warrant had been issued against him in Merwada state in the wake of the Quit India movement.
Its initial activities focused on Punjab and Haryana, where it worked on removing social evils and discriminatory traditions, and on improving employment opportunities for the migrant poor.
[54] Anjana Devi joined Chaudhary's fray of freedom fighters and gave up wearing jewellery after the couple co-founded Rajasthan Sevak Sangh in 1920.
For her contribution in mobilising women during the Bijolia Satyagraha, she not only spent multiple jail terms but was also threatened to be killed at gunpoint by a police officer in Mewar's Amargadh.
As Chaudhary spent almost six years serving various prison terms, Anjana Devi had a special role in providing a sound upbringing of their three children, often taking personal advice from Gandhi.
Chaudhary, through his will written in 1972, instructed family members to use his personal savings to set up Rajasthan Trimurti Smarak Trust, an organisation wished to establish in the memory of his three mentors, i.e. Arjunlal Sethi, Thakur Kesarisinh Barhath, and Vijaysinh Pathik.
[57] As a staunch Gandhian, Chaudhary believed in non-violence resistance, promotion of Hindu-Muslim harmony, removal of untouchability, women's education, and voluntary physical labour.
These works included Gandhi's prison experiences at Yerwada jail, views on public education, ideas about state-society relations, caste system, natural remedies for diseases, and correspondence with Vallabhbhai Patel, ashram residents, et al. Chaudhary translated key Gandhian literary works, for example, Gandhi's secretary, Mahadev Desai's diaries.
